


Red Flag

by Setcheti



Series: Clint Barton: Witch Hunter [2]
Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:24:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony didn't expect the flagged files to be anything really important - after all, one of them was just Loki having nightmares...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Flag

It took about a week before Tony Stark was able to get to all of the things Jarvis had flagged for him to look at. The day after the battle – and after they’d sent a very subdued Loki back to Asgard with Thor – he’d started with the potential incursions into the system; by the time he got done fixing and strengthening his network’s security, not only was it SHIELD-proof but the remains of his day had already passed. He joined Pepper for a late dinner, went over what Stark Industries’ charitable response to the attack on the city was going to be, how and when it was going to be announced, and what Iron Man could do to help with some of the reconstruction, and then took her to bed to celebrate being alive. 

The next morning, he got up early and delivered smaller versions of his tower’s generator to the city’s hospitals, police stations, and fire departments. He got them all hooked up and then went back to the tower to deal with structural issues caused by everything that had gone on. Two hours on the computer, four hours in the suit dragging and blasting and spot-welding, and a few more hours on the computer and the phone arranging for the larger problems he couldn’t personally fix to be attended to by contractors he trusted. That night’s (late) dinner with Pepper was spent discussing issues that had come up within the company, and Iron Man’s schedule helping out in the city the next day. It had been a long day for both of them, and the next day was going to be even longer for Tony, so they went to bed and just cuddled. 

Tony spent all of the next day moving heavy things and spot-welding all over Manhattan. He ran into Johnny Storm doing the same thing a few times – the guy may have been a jerk, but he had an artist’s touch when it came to repairing broken glass and metal. Mr. Fantastic and The Thing were pitching in at street-level and, perhaps not surprisingly, so was Steve Rogers – out of uniform, of course, since there were still a lot of talking heads yelling about holding the Avengers responsible for the damage the battle had caused to the city. When Tony finally got back home that night, he had a serious discussion with Pepper about that over dinner and then fell into bed, exhausted. Because the following day was going to be more of the same. 

Two days of non-stop construction work and Tony was done in – but everyone had power and the streets were clear of debris. He slept late the next morning, then padded downstairs in sweats and a t-shirt and bare feet to see what else Jarvis had flagged for him to look at. The two red flags in his personal files had his attention immediately. The first was from the night after the battle, the night all of the Avengers had been staying in the partially-wrecked Tower. Tony did vaguely remember telling Jarvis to record any conversations which sounded important that night, mainly in case Loki had managed to take someone over again, but since it didn’t seem like that had happened he wondered what any of them could have talked about that could possibly have rated a red flag... 

He listened to it, frowning, and then replayed it and listened again. Barton and Rogers knew each other? That was weird and shouldn’t even be possible. And Rogers had called Barton by a different name, familiarly, like a nickname…Tony dug through the linked files, one of which went to his father’s journals. And the journal entry had a further link to…the British Museum? Tony followed that one and then wished he hadn’t, because the connection wasn’t immediately obvious so it made him more confused instead of less. He went back to the original recording, paying even closer attention this time and pausing the playback often, trying to figure out if the conversation was in some kind of code, if they were actually talking about something else. He finally decided that wasn’t what they were doing, and it was obvious that the two men were friends, good ones – and that hadn’t happened in just the month or so Rogers had been back in the shiny new land of the living. Which would mostly confirm the connection to Howard’s journal, and possibly the one to the museum. If Barton and Rogers had known each other back in the forties, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine Barton having been around before that. 

Rogers was also a lot more on the ball than Tony had given him credit for, a lot more. In fact, Tony was starting to suspect that Rogers was a lot more than SHIELD realized he was, period. But he was also realizing, much to his chagrin, that he had played right into Fury’s plans by letting his own assholeishness fly free from practically the moment he’d met the kid – and Rogers was, on the ball or not, a kid. Fury had shoved responsibility for defending the planet from a god of unknown powers onto a twenty-something time-displaced soldier, putting him in charge of a team of people who were all older than he was, all ridiculously stubborn, and who had for the most part never worked together before in their lives. Oh, not to mention that one of them had a tendency to turn into a giant green monster when he got angry, and that the monster wasn’t known to be controllable in the least. 

Fury and his games were a problem for another time, though. First, Tony needed to figure out what was going on with Barton, because it was obviously something Fury and SHIELD didn’t know about and he wanted in on that. He reluctantly went back to the inexplicable British Museum link again and took a closer look at it, scanning through photographs of really old documents and creating a sort of time- and event-line in his head. Half an hour later he was again wishing he hadn’t done that, because in that time he’d pretty much figured out enough that it was probably going to keep him up nights. Not entirely because it involved things Tony didn’t even want to think about, but also because that crazy fucker Loki had been inside Clint Barton’s head and supposedly now knew everything he knew. 

And some of the shit not-really-Clint-Barton possibly knew…was shit neither Loki nor anyone else really should have been privy to. Not to mention, if Loki ever got loose again he now had some serious leverage against Barton and possibly Rogers as well. 

He needed to talk to them both, immediately. And without SHIELD finding out that he’d been in contact – or at least not thinking the contact had been anything they needed to stick their noses into. “Jarvis, can you locate Barton and Rogers for me…without anyone finding out you were looking for them?” 

“One moment, sir; I’ll check.” Tony checked the second red flag while he waited, frowning over footage of Loki apparently having nightmares, waking up from them, and then trying pretty obviously to stay awake for a while. He’d pretty much dismissed the flag as Jarvis and the algorithms miscalculating the importance of that because it was Loki having the nightmares when Jarvis spoke again. “I have their locations, sir. Should I assume you would like to contact them without being detected also?” 

Tony frowned. “Can we do that without turning this into a reenactment of a bad spy movie?” 

“Yes sir.” 

“Do it. Let them know that I need to see them here at the Tower, try to keep it sounding casual but not too casual.” He had a burst of inspiration. “Say it’s about the uniforms, that I have some ideas for improvements and I want their input.” 

“Certainly, sir. I will notify you if anything goes amiss.” 

“I’m crossing my fingers that nothing will. And if possible, let me know when they both receive the message and what their reaction is to it.” Tony went back to the museum website, creating a little program to scan the photo-reproductions and turn the data into a real timeline for him, and then he went back into the security system and started looking for holes again. Because now he had even more things in the system that SHIELD didn’t need to poke their noses into.


End file.
